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Cream Cakes (Pint of flour pint of cream)
1 pint of flour. 1 pint of cream (or milk). 2 eggs, well beaten. Lump of butter size of an egg.
Put the milk and butter on the fire till it boils. Mix and bake quickly in pans. Salt to taste.
Another Recipe for Cream Cakes. 1 quart of cream (sour is preferable). 4 eggs. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 1 teaspoonful of salt.
Flour for a thick batter.--Mrs. G.
Another Recipe for the Same. 1 quart of flour. 3 eggs. 1 tablespoonful of lard. 1 pint of cream. 1 teaspoonful of salt.
Bake in tins.--Mrs. A.C.
Three versions of the same Southern hot bread, none of them a cake in the modern sense. All are batters baked in small tins and eaten hot at the table.
- The hinge: temper the eggsThe recipe says only to boil the milk and butter, then "mix"; the order is left to the cook. If you scald the flour with the hot liquid, let the paste cool for a few minutes before beating in the eggs, or they will set into threads of scrambled egg.
- Flour and cream by volumeA pint of flour is 2 cups, a quart is 4 cups; these were scooped rather than weighed, so expect roughly 8-9 oz per pint of soft Southern flour. Modern all-purpose flour absorbs more liquid, so hold back a little of the last cup until you see the batter.
- Lump of butter the size of an eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. The measure was standard when butter came in a crock rather than a marked stick.
- "Bake quickly"The book gives no oven term or temperature; "quickly" implies a hot oven, and something in the region of 425F suits these batters. Grease the tins and get them hot before the batter goes in.
- The pans"Pans" and "tins" are unspecified; gem pans or small cast-iron muffin tins are the likely intention. A standard 12-cup muffin tin will do, with the quart-of-flour versions needing a second tin.
- Sour cream in the second versionMrs. G.'s sour cream would have been naturally clabbered raw cream. Use full-fat cultured sour cream or well-shaken buttermilk so the teaspoon of soda has acid to work against, and bake at once before the gas escapes.
- No leavening in versions one and threeNeither has soda or baking powder; the lift comes from eggs and steam. Note that version three's quart of flour to a pint of cream makes a stiff mixture rather than a thin pouring batter. Keep the oven door shut.
- ServingHot bread, meant for breakfast or supper alongside butter and preserves. They collapse and toughen as they cool and do not keep.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and generally dated 1878, gathered contributions from named and initialled Virginia housewives, which is why the same dish appears three times over with three sets of proportions and the signatures "Mrs. G." and "Mrs. A.C." The book is a record of what particular kitchens actually did, not an editor's single approved method. "Cream cakes" belongs to the enormous Southern family of hot breads baked in small iron pans and carried to the table still steaming, and its reliance on cream, sour or sweet, reflects a household with its own cow and no refrigeration: cream that had turned was not waste but a leavening ingredient, paired with soda to make it rise.